St. Catharines is making a move to ban the sale of plastic bottles in city-owned facilities.

In the short term, it will mean ending plastic water bottle sales. Over time, it could mean phasing out sales of all beverages in plastic bottles.

Mayor Walter Sendzik said previous councils passed motions in 2007, 2011 and 2012 banning plastic water bottles at municipally-owned and operated facilities but they’re still being sold there.

“This is way too long that it’s taken us to ban plastic water bottles,” Sendzik said, adding Niagara Falls did it back in 2009 and they’ve done a great job.

Sendzik made a motion that bottled water sales be banned immediately but agreed to wait for a staff report on implementation at the request of St. Patrick’s Coun. Mat Siscoe. Staff were asked to quickly turn around the report, which will provide a list of infrastructure needs at city facilities such as water foundations or refill stations and an education plan.

Council also passed Sendzik’s motion that city staff prepare a comprehensive plan to fully implement a plastic bottle ban for other beverages. The plan will include an implementation strategy, budget, implications for existing contracts and agreements, a communications plan, education strategy and timelines. Stakeholders would also be involved.

The aim is to reduce waste and promote municipal drinking water as a safe, convenient and affordable alternative.

Affordable housing project gets tax exemption

An affordable housing project in downtown St. Catharines has a new designation.

City council unanimously voted to designate the 127-unit building going up at the former legion site at 111 Church Street a municipal capital facility. The move will exempt the building from regional development charges and municipal, regional and education taxes.

The project is a unique partnership between Bethlehem Housing and Support Services, Penn Terra Group and FirstOntario Credit Union.

“The proposal being advanced by Penn Terra, FirstOntario and Bethlehem is a new and ground breaking means of providing affordable housing with the assistance of private enterprise,” said lawyer Tom Richardson, speaking to council on behalf of Bethlehem and Penn Terra.

Richardson explained that Bethlehem owns and operates two facilities in St. Catharines and one in Niagara Falls that are exempt from municipal taxation because Bethlehem is a charity organized for the relief of poverty.

The new Church Street building, however, doesn’t qualify for the same tax exemption because although it will be operated by Bethlehem, it will be constructed and owned by Penn Terra.

“The requirement to pay municipal taxes will make this project unviable,” Richardson said. Regional council agreed to the designation in October at the recommendation of its corporate services committee and sought an expression of support from St. Catharines.

More than 5,000 Niagara families and individuals are on waiting lists for affordable housing.

Mayor Walter Sendzik has asked the city’s CAO Shelley Chemnitz to review policies and procedures related to sexual harassment, violence and abuse in the workplace.

The request on Monday came the day after former St. Catharines MP Rick Dykstra resigned as Ontario PC Party president amid a sexual assault accusation.

Sendzik told council he’s been troubled and disappointed by stories in the media over the last few months and weeks about sexual harassment, assault and misconduct.

“The conversations our society is having right now are showing how prevalent this problem is in our community, at work, in the school system and within the community at large,” Sendzik said. “It’s never ok. This is an uncomfortable reality we have to confront if we’re going to make change.”

Sendzik said the stories have reinforced his position that council, together with the city’s senior staff team, has to ensure that its policies, procedures and support for employees is as strong as they can be when it comes to sexual harassment, violence and abuse in the workplace.

“We must be clear there is zero tolerance for this behaviour in the workplace and anywhere in our community,” he said.

He said he hoped other businesses, organizations and institutions will also ensure their policies are strong and not shy away from the conversation.

City puts money behind curling bid

St. Catharines will invest $225,000 towards the 2020 Brier Championship if the local bid for the event is successful.

The St. Catharines Golf and Country Club requested the financial support for a grant to Curling Canada to offset the event’s operating expenses.

The $225,000 would be paid out over three years in instalments from the city’s civic project fund.

The Brier is the men’s national curling championship and draws the best teams from across the country. Councillors were told last November that the 10-day event at Meridian Centre would have an estimated impact of $12 million to $15 million.

City council unanimously endorsed the bid in November and approved the club’s request for waiving $202,660 in fees for use of Meridian Centre for the 10 days plus six days of setup.

Mayor Walter Sendzik said the $225,000 will not be deployed until the bid is won.

St. Catharines is in a competition for the 2020 championship with Kingston, Moncton, NB and Prince George, BC.

Meridian Centre hosted the national women’s curling championship, Scotties Tournament of Hearts, in February 2017 and drew 60,000 spectators over 10 days.

Citizens to weigh in on prices of parks programs

How much are the city’s parks, recreation and culture programs worth to residents?

St. Catharines is teaming up with Brock University to find out.

The city will hold focus groups in February and March to help develop the city’s pricing policy for its parks and rec services.

“We want to gain an understanding of what our residents value as it relates to the pricing of our recreation programs,” Phil Cristi, director of parks, recreation and culture, told councillors.

“The feedback from the focus groups will support the development of a pricing policy that will guide us in the future.”

Participants in the focus groups will be asked to share their feedback about the pricing structure for current parks, recreation and culture services as well as share what they value most about the programming.

Residents interested in participating can learn more at www.stcatharines.ca/pricing. Focus group members will receive two free passes for public swimming or skating.

The city’s end goal is to develop consistent pricing that will allow it to financially support those programs and services that are most valuable to the community.

Brock students and faculty in the department of recreation and leisure studies have been working with city staff to develop a research plan for the focus groups.

“We’re certainly attempting to leverage our relationship with Brock and the expertise at Brock to help us put together a top notch research project and we hope to come back to council with favourable results,” Cristi said.

A plan by the city’s budget committee to explore the third-party management for Bill Burgoyne Memorial Arena crashed and burned.

Committee chair Mat Siscoe snuffed the motion at Monday night’s council meeting after user groups and fellow councillors spoke against the idea.

“I find it disturbing that the city would want to lose control or ownership of the only arena facility in north St. Catharines,” said Jeff Hassim, a board member of Garden City Kiwanis Hockey League, speaking to council.

Hassim urged councillors to continue to operate the Linwell Road arena for his organization, Garden City Minor Hockey and St. Catharines Minor Lacrosse. He said if council was to consider a third party, those three organizations should have the opportunity to run the facility rather than a group that has no affiliation with the arena or a for-profit.

Siscoe told those gathered that the city was not selling the facility. The idea was to have staff sit down with user groups to find out if they have any interest in running the arena and what third-party management would entail.

He said they’d ensure current ice allocations would be maintained and all user groups would keep their tenancies.

But Port Dalhousie Coun. Bruce Williamson said the city should be able to run the facility and St. Andrew’s Coun. Joe Kushner said he didn’t see a need for it.

After withdrawing the motion to applause by the crowd in council chambers, Siscoe said he was concerned that councillors tasked the budget committee with looking at third party options and then spoke against the first one that came forward. Council endorsed the budget committee’s work plan last year during budget deliberations.

“Obviously nobody has a desire to create a great deal of division, but this was the first opportunity when we were working to do the budget work plan,” Siscoe said.

Mayor Walter Sendzik said the city’s budget is a year-round process now, allowing discussions to take place and information to be gathered in advance, rather than at the last minute on budget night.

He said the discussion was a great example of how the city is getting ahead of the issues. “This is not a direction we want to go in, but we’ve got to continue to look for ways to help mitigate increasing costs to the taxpayer.”